This Is Pretty Much a Practice Piece, For Naruto
by Amatsu
Summary: I was born on suffering. I've been taking the dick since the day I was born. My parents died and things just kept on getting worse. I've had life trying to fuck me for so long; and yet, that doesn't mean I've gotta to prostrate myself and take it, like some kind of feeble bitch. No, I have my own agenda -I'm going to be the greatest ninja there ever was, or will be. Count on it.


**Amatsu~**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or anything else that may be referenced in this writing. Please don't sue me.**

"Fuck off," Naruto Uzumaki said to a trio of boys, about three years older than him. They were behind the ninja academy of Konohagakure -he was a first year and only eight years old, whereas these boys were well into their third year-, and the leader of their little group had none-too-nicely 'asked' the boy for the measley sum of money that he'd scrounged up for lunch. This was a common occurence, by now, and the blonde was used to the usual shenanigans of his fellow classmates. "The hell did you say to me?" the tallest boy, a brunette, yelled in his face. He grabbed his collar, lifting him up and off his feet. To his right, an orange-haired boy with an ugly face cracked his knuckles in preparation, hyped to be abusing the school's pariah. Few, if any, would step in to protect the boy -even amongst the teachers, the amount of people who gave a damn what happened to the blonde could be counted on one hand, with a few fingers left over.  
Naruto raised his eyebrow, increduously. "Are you deaf?" he spit in his face, blinding the boy and making him drop him, before following up with a sucker-punch to the crotch. The boy's eyes bugged out and his face went purple as he collapsed into the fetal position. "I'm not dealing with your bullshit." he muttered as he glared at the other two boys. The last of the trio, a pudgy kid with a mohawk, moved forward, as if to grapple him, but the he ducked under him and slammed his palm into the older boy's throat. As he gagged, Naruto jabbed him in the eyes and then, jumping high, he drop-kicked him in the face. As the pudgy boy fell back on his head, Naruto rolled to the ugly one and, jumping up, jabbed him in the sternum, stomped on his foot, and as he doubled over, grabbed his hair to pull him back, and choked him out.  
Rising to his feet, the victor stood tall, glancing over each boy to make sure they were down. "Don't bother me again." he said with finality, before turning and walking away from them, and into the school.  
As he sauntered through the hallways, towards his classroom, Naruto reflected: in another life, he might've been weak, like those boys. Scrubs like them might have actually been a threat to him. But that just wasn't the case. He had lived a relatively shitty existence, and he had very quickly picked up on the fact that no one could make it better, except for himself. It wasn't that hard to realize; live a couple of years being treated as human garbage, and it becomes apparent that people are going to keep shitting on you until you **make** them stop. So he had done what was required -he had toughened up and made something of himself.  
Pushing open the door, Naruto walked into his classroom with a casual gait, even as his instructor made a congealed effort to ignore him. They were ninja, under the thumb of the Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, and thus, couldn't be caught treating him unfairly. However, that didn't exactly mean they had to acknowledge him beyond neccessity. He didn't care though; people like that: they were the least of his concerns.  
Taking his seat at the back-right corner of the class, he pulled a small, thick book out from his pocket. _Fuinjutsu for Dummies_ , it read, boldly, on the front cover. Cracking it open to a specific page, Naruto Uzumaki began to read.

Sweat dribbled from his face and onto blades of grass as he worked. His arms ached from the exertion of his routine. Yet, he continued, as per usual. Even as his arms strained and creaked from the effort, he kept at it. "71,72,73" he continued this pattern in rhythm with his push-ups, keeping his face blank, aside from the occasional twitch as he exerted himself. _'I won't stop until my arms give out'_ , he thought to himself, even as the burning in his arms continued to escalate. Finally, he could take no more, and he collapsed on his face. "127", he muttered. "That's one more than yesterday."  
Rolling onto his back, arms hanging uselessly, he began to do sit-ups. Time-and-time again, he pulled his torso up, to his knees. Falling. He did it again, repeating this pattern until his stomach and abdominals ached from it all and he could no longer manage it. Unable to rise, he lay there for a bit while his body recovered. "As long as I keep going foward," he said to himself, "I'll never go back."  
Finally pulling himself to his feet, Naruto began doing squats.

Hiruzen Sarutobi watched in wonder as his favorite blonde worked himself ragged. "In all of my years," he started, eyes wide in shock, "I've never seen anything like this." He lit his pipe. "For a child of his age to be so determined; so dedicated..." Inhale. "That boy, he will go far. Don't you think so, Minato?" he asked, looking at a painting to his right. Smiling, he took another drawl of his pipe before leaning back and looking into his crystal ball, to see Naruto begining his rounds with a jumprope. "Perhaps I can give him a bit of guidance..."

Naruto raised an eyebrow at the object in front of him. It was colorful, and lay in front of him, innocently. "This has to be some kind of joke." he muttered, leaning down to inspect the object. Picking it up, cautiously, he brought it up to eye-level and turned it in his hand. "Seriously, a present?" It was a striped package with a scarlet bow atop. Bringing it inside, he placed it firmly on his dingy wooden table, steadying the structure as it wobbled on its bum leg. He stared at it long and hard before finally coming to a decision.  
Grabbing the bow firmly, he unraveled it in a single motion and pulled the wrapping paper apart. It was a rather large book, entitled _The Ninja Way, by Tobirama Senju_. His eyes widened, in surprise. ' _Tobirama Senju was the Second Hokage, and if this book was truly written by him, then it must be a wealth of information! More importantly, I've never seen this in the library, despite my thorough scanning of the place. This is valuable; why would anyone just_ _ **give**_ _it to me?'  
_ Steeling himself, he opened the first page and subjected himself to the wealth of knowledge that lay before him. Needless to say, it was the real deal. The things that he read, the lessons that he learned: They were all priceless pieces of information. Before he knew it, he had spent the entire day, locked up in his room, and reading. The book was larger than it looked, and really difficult to understand; by the time the sun had fallen and risen again, he'd only gotten past the first three pages.

He slouched, lazily, as his teacher droned on about a subject long before their time. The Second Ninja War, where monsters like Hanzo the Salamander and The Three Legendary Sannin had make their marks. They were but examples of the sheer quality of ninja back then, in comparison to today. He snorted. Nowadays, ninja seemed to be much weaker than the relics of the past -most likely the lack of any significant strife. Without any real reason to grow strong, most ninja would simply grow complacent once they deemed themselves 'strong enough'. People like that disgusted him.  
From the front of the class, Iruka Umino narrowed his eyes at the boy. "Something funny, Naruto?" he challenged the boy. "Don't worry about it," Naruto retorted, boredly, "It's not important." Iruka stared the boy down for a while, before disregarding him. He didn't hate the boy, like most of the staff. Rather, he simply couldn't help but be hard on the kid. He reminded him of himself, at that age, and it bothered him that the blonde didn't seem to take his lessons seriously. More often than not, it was like he wasn't even trying to learn; he barely scraped by, and always showed up late. Judging by the accounts of all of his previous teachers, up until now, this was to be expected of him. Yet, he couldn't help but worry; it was the boy's 4th and -hopefully- final year in the ninja academy, and he didn't seem like he was any closer to adopting the mindset of a shinobi and taking his work seriously. He sighed in disapointment.  
Finally calling classes to an end, he moved to gather his materials and leave when he found his path blocked by the object of his thoughts. "Oh, Naruto!" he exclaimed, surprised. "I would've thought you'd be the first one out," he raised an eyebrow, "You usually are." Naruto nodded, but said nothing. He simply stared at the man, as if judging him. Finally, Iruka grew restless. "Did you need something?" Naruto nodded. "Yes." They stood there in an awkward silence that grated on Iruka's nerves. He tried to wait patiently; yet, Naruto didn't seem any closer to elaborating. "What do you need, Naruto?" he finally asked. Naruto walked over to a stray desk, situating himself atop the structure. "Teach me something, please." Iruka nearly stumbled at the nature of his request. "What do you mean?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. "If you actually paid attention to my classes, you'd find yourself learning plenty." Naruto shook his head. "Not likely." he said, simply. His teacher twitched in annoyance. "What are you implying, Naruto?" he asked, warningly. "Are you implying that I'm a bad teacher?" Naruto simply stared at him, his icy-blue eyes boring into his own and making him plenty uncomfortable. Finally, he responded. "No." Though he didn't show it, Iruka was relieved. After all, he liked his student more than he let on. "Then get to the point. What are you saying?" he said/asked, retaking his seat. As he did so, the boy stood, walking over to his desk with a purpose. "I know it all." he said, simply. Iruka blanched. "Waitwhat?" he stammered, "Can you repeat that?" Naruto nodded. "I know everything you're teaching. It's boring, learning the same thing a second time. Especially when I could be investing this time into something else."  
Iruka glared at him. "Prove it," he challenged the boy. He nodded, walking over to the chalkboard. Writing down the very same formula that the man had intended to introduce on the following day. It was meant to calculate the force required for a shuriken to pierce a log with a diameter of 83 centimeters. Iruka watched, wide-eyed, as his blonde charge solved the formula with a practiced ease, then even going so far as to demonstrate it on the wooden dummy he'd brought in the day before for preparation. It struck true, digging deep into the 'heart' of the wooden figure with an audible _thunk._ He turned to his sensei with that blank gaze of his. "Satisfied?"  
Iruka was at a loss for words. The ease at which the boy had demonstrated it clearly indicated that he had practiced it a lot, and knew what he was doing. Frankly, he wasn't even sure that he, himself could do much better. Finally nodding, he spoke. "Alright, you've made your point; what do you want to learn?" he asked, his respect for the boy rising a bit. "Anything. Everything." Naruto said, firmly. "Anything you deem important. Everything I don't already know." Iruka chuckled. "So you're a bit of an information junkey then," he grinned at the boy. "Who would've thought?" Naruto allowed the slightest smile to adorn his face. "Yes, I suppose I am."

Iruka stood before his favorite student, arms crossed and with his eyes narrowed into a firm glare.

"Again"

Naruto Uzumaki flashed through a set of a seals and, placing his hands together in the tiger seal, muttered something under his breath. There were three of him now. Iruka nodded. "Acceptable, but not perfect. Do it again." Naruto said nothing. Instead, he simply did as he was told. He would do it again and again -as many times as it took to perfect the technique.  
"Remember Naruto, fear not the man who has practiced a thousand jutsu once; fear the man who has practiced a single jutsu a thousand times." The boy nodded, silently, and cast the jutsu once more. Then again. And again. And again.

"Once more."

A whirling of steel sounded throughout the air before a loud _thunk_ echoed through the wind. He lowered his arm as he moved forward to inspect his mark. It had hit the bulls-eye. Yet, it was not quite at the center. "Not good enough," he muttered. Grabbing his tools once more, he reassumed his previous position and threw his shuriken again.  
From behind him, Iruka stood, attentively as he watched the boy work. _'He's made considerable progress in this short time. I wouldn't be surprised if he's been working his ass of at home as well. It seems like something he would do.'_ He thought to himself, even as his student threw his weapons for the tenth time in a minute. Who even knew how many minutes they'd been working at this. Yet, Naruto continued, resolutely.  
"I'm going to be the best." he said to Iruka. The man raised an eyebrow. "The best?" he parroted him, as if testing his words. Naruto nodded, firmly. "It doesn't matter how hard I have to work to do it. I'll become the strongest." He regarded Naruto for a moment. "In the village?" Naruto shook his head.

"In the world?"

Again, he shook his head, before looking back at the man. A small smile played on his features.

"Ever."


End file.
